We've "Immigrated" to A New Website! jesusforrevolutionaries.org

Dear Friends,

I hope you are doing incredibly well today!  The Jesus for Revolutionaries Blog has moved to a new and improved website!  All of our previous posts are available on the new site. 

Please check out our new site!  You can get there by clicking on the website image to your right or by clicking on the link below...

http://jesusforrevolutionaries.org/

Please spread the word!

All best,
Robert

“Operation Wetback” and the Racist History of U.S. Immigration Law

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This week we return to our 40-day series on immigration.  In a past blog we looked at how most Chinese immigrants (my maternal side) were excluded from the U.S. between 1882-1943 as part of what were known as the Chinese exclusion laws.  We, the Chinese, were the first ethnic group to be singled out for exclusion from the United States.  After the Chinese, the United States proceeded to recruit other Asian immigrants such as Japanese, Koreans, and Filipinos to fill the labor void caused by exclusion.  

In time, these other Asian immigrants became systematically barred from the United States through various laws and diplomatic agreements as well.   Anti-Asian sentiment reached its apex in federal law when The Immigration Act of 1917 was passed.   This law created an “Asiatic Barred Zone” which banned “Asian” immigration to the United States from much of Asia and the Pacific Islands.  This barred zone encompassed a huge mass of territory all the way from Turkey in the west to the Polynesian Islands in the east.  President Wilson tried to veto the law, but the law was so popular that Congress over-rode his veto!

The Immigration Act of 1924 further enshrined these prohibitions against Asian immigrants and expanded restriction to Southern and Eastern Europeans.  The Immigration Act of 1924 was an extension of the “Emergency Quota Act of 1921.”  “Emergency,” as in, “help, we have an ‘emergency’ on our hands—too many inferior Italians, Russians, Greeks, Hungarians, and Poles are coming to our country.”

The Immigration Act of 1924 severely limited the immigration of people from these less favored nations of Southern and Eastern Europe, and favored immigration from Northern European nations such as Germany and Great Britain.  According to the U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian, the goal of the 1924 Act was "to preserve the ideal of American [cultural and racial] homogeneity.”  As a side note, the general policy of racist quotas in the U.S. was not overturned until 1965! 

All this restriction created fertile ground for wide-scale immigration from Mexico during the early twentieth century.  Who would fill the labor void caused by these racist immigration laws, especially in the Southwest?  Answer:  Mexicans. 

It just so happened that as my Asian peeps were being systematically banned from the U.S., my other peeps in Mexico (my dad’s side) were going through a bloody civil war called the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920).  The Mexican Revolution was so violent that scholars claimed it took the lives of anywhere from 1.9 to 3.5 million people! 

There was a perfect historical fit:  the U.S. needed cheap labor in places like California, Texas, and Arizona, and thousands of Mexicans were looking to flee the violence of the Mexican Revolution and come to the United States.   This all led to what scholars call the Great Mexican Migration. 

The Great Migration gave birth to a huge, somewhat-new (after all, the Southwest was still Mexico in the mid-19^th century and thousands of erstwhile Mexicans still lived in the Southwest during the early 20^th century) Mexican community scattered throughout the United States.  We did many of the low-wage jobs required by the economy of the Southwest in agriculture, railroads, construction, mining, and factories. By the 1920’s, we made up 3/4 of the workforce of the 6 major western railroads, and ¾ of construction workers and 80 percent of migrant farm workers in Texas.  In California, we represented ¾ of the agricultural work force, and nearly 2/3 of workers in construction, food processing, textiles, automobile and steel production, and utilities industries. 

We Mexicans were paid very low wages compared with white workers, even when we did the same jobs.  This is because of something called the “Mexican scale.”  Employers felt justified to pay us less because of our brown skin, and, since the 19th century they had exploited us to keep wages low, break strikes, and weaken labor unions. 

Although our cheap labor was initially welcome, that all changed in 1929 with the onset of the Great Depression.  American society scape-goated us and blamed us for job losses, the shortage of relief services, and housing congestion.  The American Federation of Labor led the anti-Mexican campaign, and even President Herbert Hoover promoted anti-Mexican public opinion.

This economic scape-goating led to massive, unjust deportations to Mexico. 

From 1930-1935, 345,839 of us Mexicans were repatriated or deported back to Mexico!  In fact, almost 2/3 of Mexicans who came to United States in the 1920’s were sent back to Mexico.  Los Angeles lost 1/3 of its Mexican population.

Tragically, Mexican Americans were not excluded from deportation.  In California, over 80% of the repatriates were U.S. citizens or legal residents of the U.S.!  According to one of my uncles whose family lived through this time period in Pico Rivera, immigration officials even conducted raids in churches!

These unjust deportations broke up many families and thousands of American-born kids were separated from their parents. For the rest of the Great Depression, we lived in a climate of fear and uncertainty.

Fast forward in time a few years to 1942 and World War II.   Because of the extensive war effort which redirected many Americans (including many Mexican Americans) to the military and defense work, the U.S. experienced a labor shortage in agriculture.  Guess who it turned to to fill the labor shortage in agriculture? Mexico!  That’s right, after deporting 2/3 of us less than a decade before, they suddenly threw down the welcome mat again—this time by initiating a temporary guest worker program known as the “Bracero Program.”  As part of this program, nearly 250,000 of us Mexicans were recruited to work for low wages on farms in the Southwest and Pacific Northwest. 

Many undocumented workers were also hired by growers.  As the years passed, American farmers encouraged or required “bracero workers” to keep working without renewing their work visas with the U.S. government.  As a consequence, within a decade, undocumented farm workers came to outnumber documented farm workers by a ratio of three to one (Props to UCLA grad student Kim Serrano for filling me in on this in one of her recent papers). 

In summer 1954, U.S. immigration policy took yet another schizophrenic turn when President Dwight Eisenhower launched “Operation Wetback.”  That is a sickening name.  Like it’s predecessor program in the 1930’s, Operation Wetback was a mass deportation program.  It was a quasi-military operation spear-headed by the United States Border Patrol, together with the military and city, county, state, and federal authorities.  As part of their massive hunt for undocumented immigrants, they went house-to-house in Mexican-American neighborhoods and checked for papers as part of regular traffic stops.  They probably went door to door just a few blocks down the street from where I live today.

On the first day of Operation Wetback, authorities apprehended 4,800 undocumented immigrants, and thereafter arrested about 1,100 Mexican immigrants a day throughout the summer.   The INS boasted (perhaps exaggerating its “success”) that its racist operation led to the deportation or “voluntary deportation” of more than 1 million Mexicans. Does that “voluntary deportation” sound familiar (yes, that was Mitt Romney’s idea, too)?

Upshot: 

The main purpose of this blog post has been to highlight the intense historical racism which has characterized U.S. immigration policy.  Whether it be the mass deportations of the 1930’s, Operation Wetback, or even the mass deportations (1.4 million!) carried out by President Obama over the past four years, the historical pattern has been the same: 

Recruit us Mexicans as a cheap, undocumented labor supply when it is necessary to keep the U.S. economy afloat.

 In times of economic difficulty, scapegoat and blame us for taking the jobs of Americans and taking government services (how dare we go see a doctor or educate our children, in addition to working our 60-70 hour work weeks picking your fruits and vegetables, raising your children, cooking your food, maintaining your educational campuses, fixing your lawn, or remodeling your home? We are strong, but we still break down from time to time. We are not brown robots ). 

Then, we get deported by the thousands, and painfully separated from the beautiful families we created after we were recruited to work in the jobs which no one else wanted to do.

Then, because of labor shortages, we get recruited back to the U.S. after a few years to work once again in the jobs no one else wants to do.

Repeat cycle from 1910 to the present. 

This historical pattern constitutes biblical oppression, and it is antithetical to all the teachings of Jesus and the Bible.   

The Bible clearly teaches that when we oppress immigrants in this manner, we are oppressing Jesus Himself.  Conversely, when we love immigrants and treat them humanely, we are actually loving Jesus Himself.   When we “welcome the stranger” (as Matt Soerens and Jenny Hwang have passionately and compassionately written about: http://welcomingthestranger.com/), we are welcoming Jesus Himself.

Jesus articulates this amazing truth in Matthew 25: 31-46:

31 “When the Son of Man (Jesus) comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

34 “Then the King (Jesus) will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I (Jesus) was a stranger (immigrant) and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

40 “The King (Jesus) will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

41 “Then he (Jesus) will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger (immigrant) and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

As Matthew 25 teaches, when we love immigrants, we are loving Jesus.  When we oppress immigrants, we are failing to love Jesus in our midst.  When we exploit undocumented immigrants for their cheap labor and then deport them out of political expediency, we are doing the same to Jesus.           

The U.S. has been deporting Jesus for the past 100 years.

Will we continue to do the same?

As followers of Jesus, we, of all people, must take Scripture seriously and sound the loudest clarion cry against the unjust deportation of immigrants in the United States today.  We must break the vicious historical cycle set in motion by racist policies such as the Chinese Exclusion Act, The Immigration Act of 1924, the mass deportations of the 1930’s, and Operation Wetback.  This is our biblical mandate and calling.

Here’s a way you can get involved: http://welcomingthestranger.com/

Robert Chao Romero

@ProfeChaoRomero

http://jesusforrevolutionaries.blogspot.com/

                       

The Supreme Court Battle over the Voting Rights Act

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We are currently in a 40-days blog series about immigration.  In light of the current U.S. Supreme Court battle over the Voting Rights Act--the highest court of the land just hear oral arguments on a big voting case yesterday--I felt like it was really important to write a blog on the topic.  Here goes...

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Latin@s and African Americans have historically experienced wide-scale discrimination in voting.  This discrimination has taken the form of poll taxes, racial gerrymandering, all white primaries, and prohibitions against interpreters at the polls.  Lest you think such discrimination is an artifact of the distant past, as recently as August 28, 2012 (yes, just six months ago), the state of Texas was found guilty of racial gerrymandering.  Texas was found guilty of deliberately drawing district boundaries in such a way as to weaken the voting power of democratic-leaning Latinos, African Americans, and Asian Americans.   In so doing, Texas violated Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  In its comments upon the case, the League of Women Voters denounced the Texas plan as “the most extreme example of racial gerrymandering among all the redistricting proposals passed by lawmakers so far this year.”

Just yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case which seeks to overturn—yes you guessed it—Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.   According to Section 5, jurisdictions with a history of constructing voting barriers against racial minorities need federal authorization before they can implement certain voting changes.  A state or local jurisdiction can get off this “pre-clearance list” by demonstrating a 10-year clean record of no racist violations in voting practices.  

Guess which states are part of the racist voting list?  Texas, Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and most of Virginia.  I can’t help but notice that many of these states have also recently passed some of the most racist, anti-immigrant laws in the nation. 

The current lawsuit before the Supreme Court was brought by Shelby County, Alabama.   Shelby County is still on “the list” because it cannot demonstrate a clean record of 10 years.  As an example, the city of Calera, which is located within Shelby County was found guilty of redrawing its city council districts in such a way as to prevent the reelection of the municipality’s only black city council member.   Latina Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor—the first Latin@ member of the U.S. Supreme Court—did not miss this irony. In yesterday’s hearing she said: "Some parts of the South have changed. Your county pretty much hasn't," said Sotomayor. "You may be the wrong party bringing this."

Opponents of Section 5 say that racism in voting is no longer a big problem in the United States.  Super conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has even said that Section 5 results in the “perpetuation of a racial entitlement”—i.e., that it results in black and brown politicians and constituencies feeling “entitled” to have voting districts which reflect their cultural communities.  To that I say.  Damn straight.  We have been locked out of the political structures of the U.S. for the past two hundred years because of outright racism.  This has resulted in the creation of hundreds of laws and policies which have oppressed and handicapped our communities—in law, education, healthcare, media, you name it.  We are just now starting to gain political recognition and a meaningful hearing in the public square. And now you want to tie our hands behind our back again?  No way Scalia and Roberts.  No way.

Racism is still alive and well.  You may not see it, because it doesn’t affect you.  Come to our communities. Come to our homes.  Come to our schools and hospitals and cities.  We are still deeply impacted by decades of discrimination—past and present—and we need to be able to elect leaders who understand how what we’ve been through still affects where we are today, and leaders who understand our current realities.   Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act is necessary to preserve the small political voice we have recently gained, and to ensure that our voice continues to be heard.

Let's pray for justice in the Supreme Court,

Robert Chao Romero

@ProfeChaoRomero

https://www.facebook.com/JesusForRevolutionaries

“A Day Without A Mexican”: The Essential Economic Contributions of Undocumented Immigrants

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What if my wife woke up this morning and found me missing—together with my two kids and the more than 14 million other Latinos in California?

That’s the premise of the 2004 film, “A Day Without A Mexican.”  As a means of advocating for compassionate immigration reform, the film shows that the state would come to a standstill without the vital economic contributions made by Latinos—both documented and undocumented. 

According to the film (conceived in part by Raul Hinojosa, one of my departmental colleagues at UCLA), Latinos contribute 100 billion dollars to the California economy each year, while only drawing 3 billion dollars in social services.   We comprise 60% of all construction workers in the state, and the agricultural industry—the most lucrative industry in California—is entirely dependent upon us.  We raise the children of the wealthy, wash their cars, paint their houses, and serve them food and libations in their favorite restaurants. 

A lot of us are teachers, doctors, professors, lawyers, and dentists, too.

We (including our undocumented brothers and sisters), pay millions of dollars in taxes which help keep our state afloat in desperate economic times. 

And oh, we’re not all “Mexican.”  Though some of us are proudly Mexican, we also come from 21 other beautiful and distinct countries in Latin America—Guatemala, El Salvador, Argentina, Cuba, Costa Rica, Colombia, Panama, just to name a few…

And so, If we Latinos were to suddenly disappear, California would lose out on this wonderful diversity—and also grind to an economic halt.  This is the main point of “A Day Without A Mexican.”   

It’s also the main point of compassionate, comprehensive immigration reform.  

 The 11 million undocumented immigrants of the United States contribute in essential ways to the economy.  Recent statistics reveal that undocumented immigrants contribute more than 2 trillion dollars a year to the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the United States!  Without these vital economic contributions, our nation would plunge into economic despair. 

Undocumented immigrants do the jobs no one else wants to do—for low wages that no one else wants to get paid.  Their low wages ensure big profits for large corporations and small businesses alike, and for the 401(k) retirement plans of millions of Americans.  Their low wages also make it possible for 99 cent Big Mac specials, $4.99/lb strawberries, $39.99 Forever 21 jeans, $99 Expedia.com travel specials, and a wide assortment of Angie’s List specials.   

Undocumented immigrants account for 4.3% of the U.S. labor force—about 6.3 million workers out of 146 million.

They are clustered in construction, agriculture, service sector, and domestic work.  Undocumented workers make up: 

27% of drywall/ceiling tile installers

21% roofers

20% construction laborers

26% grounds maintenance workers

25% butchers/meat and poultry workers

18% cooks

23% misc. agricultural workers

22% maids and housekeepers

18% sewing machine operators

Note that these are national statistics.  In places like California, Texas, New York, and Florida, the percentages are much higher. 

To fill our ravenous need for cheap labor, 300,000 to 500,000 undocumented immigrants came to the U.S. in the early 2000’s.  It is estimated that 11 million undocumented immigrants currently live in the United States.   

If 6.3 million undocumented workers and their families contribute more than $2 trillion per year to the U.S. economy, guess how many unskilled labor visas the U.S. granted to immigrants throughout the world in 2010?:  4,762.  In fact, the maximum number of annual unskilled labor visas granted by the U.S. government is capped at only 10,000. 

Can you see the grave injustice here?  The U.S. benefits from the cheap and arduous labor of 6.3 million undocumented workers—to the tune of $2 trillion annually--but it is only willing to grant 10,000 (or less) low-skill worker visas per year!  6.3 million workers vs. 10,000 unskilled labor visas.  That’s INJUSTICE! 

The United States benefits immensely from the cheap labor of 6.3 million undocumented workers, but it is not willing to officially recognize these vital economic contributions by granting legalized status and a pathway to citizenship.  That’s not right! 

To fail to grant legalized status to these 6.3 million workers and their families constitutes biblical oppression.   The Bible is clear:

“You shall not pervert justice due the stranger (immigrant) or the fatherless, nor take a widow’s garment as a pledge.” Deut 24: 17.

 “Cursed is the one who perverts the justice due the stranger, the fatherless, and widow.”  Deut 27: 19.

“Do not oppress an alien; you yourselves know how it feels to be aliens, because you were aliens in Egypt.  Exodus 23: 9

Each day we fail to pass compassionate comprehensive immigration reform in this country, we perpetrate biblical oppression and pervert justice.  We oppress undocumented immigrants when we allow ourselves to benefit from their essential economic contributions, but deny them the concomitant rights of political citizenship.  

As followers of Jesus, let’s do all we can to advocate for compassionate and comprehensive immigration reform. And let’s ask God to carry out His justice for undocumented immigrants.   Here’s a good way to start: http://g92.org/experience/challenge/

In hope,

Robert Chao Romero

@ProfeChaoRomero

https://www.facebook.com/JesusForRevolutionaries?ref=hl

We (the Chinese) Were the First "Undocumented Immigrants" from Mexico

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Unknown to most people, we, the Chinese, were the first “undocumented immigrants” from Mexico.   Actually, we were the first undocumented immigrants from anywhere.  This is because we were the first ethnic/racial group to be singled out for official exclusion by the United States.    

         As many people do know, we first came to the U.S. to make our fortunes during the California Gold Rush (in the 1850’s, not too long after half of Mexico was stolen in the U.S.-Mexico War; see last week’s blog post for more on that).   Following the Gold Rush, about 40,000 of us were recruited as cheap labor to help build the railroads.  We did the most dangerous jobs for the lowest wages.

         After the railroads were built, many of us went into jobs in California as domestics, launderers, miners, and manufacturing plant workers.  We were also among the state’s first agricultural laborers. By the 1870’s and early 1880’s we made up about a quarter of all laborers in California. As immigrants, we worked for cheap.  Too cheap for some. 

         Anti-Chinese sentiment--“sinophobia” as it’s called--expressed itself in the forms of “anti-coolie” clubs, bigoted newspaper editorials, and boycotts of Chinese commercial products. In reaction to the Chinese presence in mining, anti-Chinese activists successfully lobbied in 1852 for an invidious tax targeting Chinese miners. By the 1860’s and 1870’s, we were the targets of a political smear campaign by the Democratic Party and racist protests by white labor union organizers.  The Democratic Party scape-goated us as a means of regaining political traction after their blundered attempt to preserve slavery.  Because of our willingness to work for low wages, we were condemned as unfair competition (sound familiar?) by white laborers. 

         Tragically, the anti-Chinese movement of the 1870’s and 80’s was also justified in religious terms.  Some people tried to justify their racism against us by saying it was God’s will that we be expelled from the country (does that sound familiar today, too?).  As a grad student back in the day, I was horrified when I came across this prayer from a San Francisco pastor, Isaac Kalloch, (who later went on to become mayor of the Golden Gated city—not so golden to the Chinese).  On July 4, 1878 he prayed:

“We believe, O Lord, that the foundations of our government were laid by Thine own hand; that all the steps and stages of our progress have been under Thy watch and ward…We meet together today to celebrate the anniversary of our national birth, and we pray that we may be enabled to carry out the divine principles which inspired our noble sires and others, and we pray that our rules may be righteous; that our people may be peaceable; that capital may respect the rights of labor, and that labor may honor capital; that the Chinese must go…and good men stay.  We believe Thou wilt hear our prayer when we pray that we believe to be right.” (As quoted in The Indispensable Enemy, by the late UCLA history prof Alexander Saxton).

I cringe every time I read this prayer because it is a disgusting misrepresentation of Jesus (I am pretty certain that Jesus cringed as well when he heard this prayer).  This pastor used Christianity, and his official clerical office, to justify discrimination against Chinese immigrants.  We came to the U.S. in order to be able to work hard and feed our families, and were initially recruited to serve as cheap laborers for jobs that nobody else wanted to do.  After the railroads were built and we began to branch out into other types of work, we became unwanted.  In other words, people wanted our labor, but didn’t want to recognize us as human beings, made in the image of God, and worthy of full political inclusion in the United States of America. 

To boot, as articulated by Mr. Kalloch, some people even felt that our expulsion and exclusion was God’s will.  As a Chinese-Mexican Christian American I find this reasoning sickening and antithetical to all the teachings of Jesus and the Bible.   

God is a God of justice and He doesn’t play racial favorites—not then, not now.  He loves all people more than we could ever hope for or imagine, and He desires for all of us to come to know Him.  Many verses of Scripture warn against the mistreatment of immigrants and speak of God’s love for all people of all the beautiful ethnicities He has made. 

Here is a small sampling of what the Bible says about God’s love and concern for immigrants:

“The Lord watches over the strangers [immigrants]; He relieves the fatherless and widow.”  Psalm 146: 9.

“You shall not pervert justice due the stranger [immigrant] or the fatherless, nor take a widow’s garment as a pledge.” Deuteronomy 24: 17.

“He administers justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing.  Therefore love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”  Deuteronomy 10: 18-19

“Cursed is the one who perverts the justice due the stranger, the fatherless, and widow.”  Deut 27: 19.

“Do not oppress an alien; you yourselves know how it feels to be aliens, because you were aliens in Egypt.  Exodus 23: 9

In addition to all of these strong warnings against the mistreatment and oppression of immigrants, the Bible is also clear about the fact that God does show racial favoritism. 

As the Apostle Peter famously says in Acts 10: 34-35:

“I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right.”  

         Paul echoes similar sentiments in his famous speech to the Greeks in Athens:

“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands.  And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.  From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.  God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.”  Acts 17: 24-27.

         And, of course there are Jesus’ own famous words: 

“For God so loved the world  [not just Europeans or white Americans or Chinese or Asians or Mexicans or Africans or any limited ethnic or cultural group] that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”  John 3: 16-17.        

         Oh yeah, now back to the topic of undocumented immigration.  This virulent racism as expressed by Mr. Kalloch, white labor unions, and the Democratic Party led to the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.  This law barred the legal immigration of Chinese immigrant laborers to the United States—zero, zilch, nada.  This law was subsequently extended and was not repealed officially until 1943.  Even then, things didn’t really change for us Chinese until 1965 because between 1943 and 1965 only 105 of us were allowed to immigrate to the U.S. per year!

          And that’s why we turned to Mexico [my paternal homeland].  Many of us went to Mexico in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a way of circumventing the Chinese Exclusion Laws and getting smuggled into the U.S.  During these years, there were virtually no restrictions on the numbers of Mexican immigrants that could come to the U.S.  We, the Chinese, were the ones singled out for exclusion.  And so we invented undocumented immigrant smuggling from Mexico! 

Coyotes (smuggling guides), fake papers, smuggling by boat and train and plane, underground tunnels—you name it.  We came up with it first.  Even the earliest border patrol units were created to keep us out—they were called “Chinese inspectors.”  We were the first ‘undocumented immigrants.’  Don’t mess with us. 

Robert Chao Romero

@ProfeChaoRomero

https://www.facebook.com/JesusForRevolutionaries

A History of Mexican Immigration to the United States: Manifest Destiny and the Mexican-American War

Mexican immigration to the United States began with bad theology and an “unjust war.”  

In 1821, Mexico was about twice its current size.  It included what is now California, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and Nevada, as well as parts of Utah, Colorado, and Kansas.   After Mexican independence from Spain in 1821, Anglo Americans began settling in the Texas territories.   In 1836, these immigrants and Mexican Texans, or, “Tejanos,” gained their independence from Mexico through military battle (i.e., “Remember the Alamo”…).   As you can imagine, Mexico was not quick to recognize Texas’ claim to independence and did not like it when Texas became a state of the American union in 1845.   To make matters worse, the U.S. and Mexico disagreed as to what constituted the official border between Texas and Mexico.  The U.S. asserted that the boundary was the Rio Grande River (what it is today).  Mexico claimed that the border was 150 miles farther north at the Nueces River (which was the historical boundary line).   This border dispute is theoretically what sparked the Mexican-American War in 1846. 

Following failed diplomatic negotiations regarding the boundary line, 4,000 U.S. troops marched to the disputed Rio Grande region.  According to President Polk, Mexican troops then fired on American troops and started the Mexican-American War.  A year and a half later, the U.S. won the war and Mexico was forced to sign the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo. 

As part of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, Mexico surrendered half of its territory to the United States in exchange for 15 million dollars.  That’s how the U.S. acquired the present-day states of California, New Mexico, Nevada and parts of Colorado, Arizona, Utah, and even Oklahoma—over half a million square miles. 

That’s also how we Mexicans first “immigrated” to the U.S.   We didn’t cross the border; the border crossed us!

Unknown to most people, many Americans felt that the Mexican-American War was an “unjust war.”  Abraham Lincoln was the most famous opponent of the Mexican-American War.  Lincoln felt that the war “was unnecessarily and unconstitutionally commenced by the President," and he staked his early congressional reputation on opposition to the war.  Ulysses S. Grant, famous Civil War general and 18^th President of the United States, also condemned the Mexican-American War later in life.  He stated, “I had a horror of the Mexican War…only I had not moral courage enough to resign…I considered my supreme duty was to my flag.” Grant went so far as to say that he felt the Civil War was God’s punishment of the U.S. for the Mexican-American War. 

Nicholas Trist, the man responsible for brokering the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo for the United States, had some of the harshest words to say about the war and ensuing treaty:

“If those Mexicans…had been able to look into my heart at that moment, they would have found that the sincere shame I felt as a North American was stronger than theirs as Mexicans.  Although I was unable to say it at the time, it was something that any North American should be ashamed of…”

To make matters worse, the Mexican-American War and the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo were inspired by bad theology.   This bad theology had a name, and it was called Manifest Destiny.   According to Manifest Destiny, God had ordained the United States to colonize North America “from sea to shining sea”—from Maine to California, and everything in between.   Moreover, as a specially anointed people of God,  Anglo Americans were given the “manifest destiny” to spread Protestant Christianity and U.S. democracy throughout North America.  The brutal colonization of the Native American population and the seizure of half of Mexico through an unjust war was all part of this so-called “divine calling.”

John O’Sullivan, editor of the Democratic Review, coined the term “Manifest Destiny.”  In the July/August 1845 issue of the Democratic Review, Sullivan claimed that it was the American “destiny to overspread the whole North American continent with an immense democratic population” (i.e., white and Protestant).   Manifest Destiny was not some fringe idea either.  It had broad social support, and proponents included rural communities, New England poets, northern abolitionists, and southern slave holders.  Notable supporters of Manifest Destiny included Walt Whitman,

John Quincy Adams, and Andrew Jackson.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the letters and diaries of American soldiers during the Mexican-American War clearly articulate the bad theology of Manifest Destiny.  In fact, some of these letters and diaries are quite shocking.  For example, one volunteer officer wrote the following to his cousin who was a Protestant minister:

“I wish I had the power to stop their churches [Mexican Catholic Churches]…to bring off this treasure hoard of gold and jewels, and to put the greasy priests, monks, friars and other officials at work on the public highways as a preliminary step to mending their ways…It is perfectly certain that this war is a divine dispensation intended to purify and punish this misguided nation…Most of our officers concur with me that nothing but a divine ruler and commander could have brought us safely through so much peril against awful odds.”

Unfortunately, some American Catholics were also not immune to the lure of Manifest Destiny.  One Catholic soldier wrote:

“ I cannot help but think, that God has fought upon our side, to chastize them for their sins.” 

Some American soldiers not only misrepresented Christianity through their bad theology and journal entries, but also through unjustified violence on the battlefield.  Accounts of soldier misconduct during the Mexican-American War were also often squelched.  Highlighting the military abuses committed by American soldiers, and the silencing of voices of opposition, one military private wrote the following to his father: 

“The majority of the Volunteers sent here are a disgrace to the nation; think of one of them shooting a woman while washing in the bank of the river—merely to test his rifle; another tore forcibly from a Mexican woman the rings from her ears.  Their officers take no notice of these outrages, and the offenders escape.  If these things are sent to the papers, they are afraid to publish, and so it happens.”

One regular officer commented on the military destruction in northern Mexico in the following way:

“From Saltillo to Mier, with the exception of the large towns, all is a desert, and there is scarcely a solitary house (if there be one) inhabited.  The smiling villages which welcomed our troops on their upward march are now black and smouldering ruins, the gardens and orange groves destroyed, and the inhabitants, who administered to their necessities, have sought refuge in the mountains.”

Boy, this is making me depressed!  I’ve taught about the Mexican-American War many times in my classes, but this is the first time I’ve had the opportunity to speak about it in depth to a broader audience in the context of my faith.   As a follower of Jesus, it makes me so sad to know that there were those who misrepresented His name in such a horrific way. 

I am filled with hope, however, to know that there were Christians who loudly and boldly denounced the Mexican-American War.  As we’ve already said, Abraham Lincoln was a vocal Christian critic of the war, and so was Ulysses Grant--later in life at least.  In a book called, The War With Mexico Reviewed, Abiel Abbott Livermore also denounced the war in powerful—and explicitly Christian—terms.  In stinging condemnation of Manifest Destiny, Livermore wrote:

“Again, the pride of race has swollen to still greater insolence the pride of country, always quite active enough for the due observance of the claims of universal brotherhood.  The Anglo-Saxons have been apparently persuaded to think themselves the chosen people, anointed race of the Lord, commissioned to drive out the heathen, and plant their religion and institutions in every Canaan they could subjugate…Our treatment both of the red man and the black man has habituated us to feel our power and forget right…The god Terminus is an unknown deity in America.  Like the hunger of the pauper boy of fictionm the cry had been, ‘more, more, give us more.’”  (As cited in Rodolfo Acuna, Occupied America, 46). 

In recognition of his forceful critic of the Mexican-American War, Livermore was awarded the American Peace Society prize for “the best review of the Mexican War and the principles of Christianity, and an enlightened statesmanship” (Acuna, 46). 

The example of Livermore reminds me of an historical principle that I’ve found to  be at play in the past 2,000 years of world history.   Every time someone, or some country, misrepresents the name of Jesus through racism or oppression of the poor and marginalized, God always raises up a witness.  Like Livermore, these witnesses  denounce such misrepresentation as counter to the teachings of Jesus and sacred Scripture, and loudly declare that God is a God of justice and compassion for the poor and marginalized of society.    

Can I get a witness?

Robert Chao Romero

@ProfeChaoRomero

https://www.facebook.com/JesusForRevolutionaries

 

Faith and Immigration Part I: The Immigration Table and the 40-Day "I Was a Stranger" Challenge

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I am hopeful.  This past week we’ve experienced an openness to comprehensive, and compassionate, immigration reform in the United States that we have not seen in more than 25 years.  “Comprehensive” immigration reform means a change in immigration policy which recognizes the huge economic contributions made by undocumented immigrants to our economy (to the tune of some $2.4 trillion a year) by providing them with a pathway to legal residency and citizenship; at the same time, this approach is also “comprehensive” in so far as it still recognizes that border security is a legitimate concern.  Ironically, the last time the U.S. passed this type of comprehensive immigration reform was in 1986 under the leadership of Ronald Reagan (a hero to many present-day opponents of such reform).  On Monday, an influential bipartisan team of senators known as the “gang of eight,” put forth a plan for comprehensive immigration reform, and on Tuesday, President Obama presented a similar plan.  In response to the walloping that Republicans experienced by Latino voters (like myself) in the recent presidential election, there’s been a complete about-face in U.S. politics related to immigration reform.  Many Republican and Democratic politicians realize that their harsh stance on immigration reform has disaffected millions of Latino voters, and they are eager to get that vote back.  In fact, according to a recent poll, 76% of conservative Republicans now favor comprehensive immigration reform. 

I am also hopeful because of the proactive stance that the evangelical Christian church in America has taken to promote compassionate immigration reform.  Yea!  I’ve been waiting a long time for this.  I’m particularly inspired by the Evangelical Immigration Table (http://evangelicalimmigrationtable.com/)

 and its 40-Day “I Was A Stranger Challenge.”   The Immigration Table consists of a broad evangelical coalition including:  the National Latino Evangelical Coalition, the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE) in Orange County, the Christian Community Development Association, Sojourners, the National Association of Evangelicals, World Relief, Bread for the World, and the Southern Baptist Denomination.   In support of their position, they have put together the following “Evangelical Statement of Principles for Immigration Reform”: 

“Our national immigration laws have created a moral, economic and political crisis in America. Initiatives to remedy this crisis have led to polarization and name calling in which opponents have misrepresented each other’s positions as open borders and amnesty versus deportations of millions. This false choice has led to an unacceptable political stalemate at the federal level at a tragic human cost.

As evangelical Christian leaders, we call for a bipartisan solution on immigration that:

    Respects the God-given dignity of every person

    Protects the unity of the immediate family

    Respects the rule of law

    Guarantees secure national borders

    Ensures fairness to taxpayers

    Establishes a path toward legal status and/or citizenship for those who qualify and who wish to become permanent residents

We urge our nation’s leaders to work together with the American people to pass immigration reform that embodies these key principles and that will make our nation proud.”  

Good job Evangelical Christian Table!  As an Asian-Latino, Chican@ and Asian American Studies follower of Jesus, I can now proudly say that the church in America has stepped up to the plate to pass immigration reform that is consistent with God’s amazing love and concern for immigrants.   Yea!!!

To read the original statement and the long list of signatories from many cross-cultural and denominational backgrounds, go to: (http://evangelicalimmigrationtable.com/).   On the website you can also sign a post-election letter to President Obama and Congress urging them to pass compassionate, comprehensive immigration reform now!

 I also strongly encourage you to take the 40-Day I Was A Stranger challenge!  For more information and a free “kit” that you can download, go to: (http://evangelicalimmigrationtable.com/).   You can do the challenge on your own, or with friends.  The first part of the challenge consists of reading 40 different Bible verses about immigration—one a day for 40 days.  Along with this reading, you are urged to pray for compassionate immigration reform.  As the second part of this challenge, you are asked to contact your local Congressperson, ask for a meeting, and encourage them to take the 40-day challenge and implement compassionate immigration reform!

Inspired by hope, I’m launching this 40-day series of blogs about Faith and Immigration.  More soon…

Robert Chao Romero

@ProfeChaoRomero

https://www.facebook.com/JesusForRevolutionaries?ref=hl

Hope from the Hood: the Christian Community Development Movement and the Metro CDC in Compton

My last blog shared about the dark reality of racial segregation in the United States.  Time for some hope.  From the hood. 

Unknown to most people, there is an amazing movement of Christian Community Development in the United States.  Thousands of  Christians of all colors and stripes and denominations are living and laboring in urban communities throughout the U.S. in the name of Jesus.  Many are from urban communities, and others relocate to serve humbly alongside existing urban churches.  Another important goal is to help raise up indigenous leaders to transform the city.  To learn more about the Christian Community Development movement check out: http://www.ccda.org/

As an illustration of Christian Community Development, I’d like to share a story of hope from Compton.  This story involves a young man and rising leader named Chris, some friends of mine who have lived and served in Compton for the past two decades, and the Metro Community Development Corporation (http://metrocdc.org/).  Here, in their own words, is their recent story of hope from the hood. 

"Chris grew up in Compton and faced many challenges as a youngster such as foster

care, a gang lifestyle and poor education.  After high school, he became involved with our Construction/Discipleship Program, growing in his relationship with the

Lord and earning his contractor’s certificate.

On one occasion, Chris bid a job calling for a 20ft beam to be installed in an attic. As they were discussing the job, the client revealed that he was the director of a security organization within a major retail mall.  In the end, Chris told the client that he would be willing to install the beam for FREE if the client would interview him for a job with his security firm. The man agreed.  After a third-party interview, Chris was hired the following day and  has full time employment with benefits! Now he has the dignity of being able to provide for his new wife and daughter.

Driving the security vehicle around the parking lot is one of his functions.  To do so, Chris needed to provide proof of having a valid driver’s license by the end of the year.  Unfortunately, he owed $800 for an outstanding traffic ticket he incurred as a teenager.  This amount would not seem horribly overwhelming to you or me, but for Chris, this might as well be millions!  His ordinary resources are just too limited and if the fines weren’t paid, he’d lose this job.

However, through the resources of Metro CDC, another option presented itself.  Chris was able to sell one of our donated cars, and not only pay off his debt, but keep his job as well.  He is one of our Courageous Leaders, a family man growing in the love and knowledge of Jesus Christ."

To learn more about Metro CDC, or to help support the training and mentorship of young leaders like Chris by donating a car, go to:  http://metrocdc.org/

In much hope!

Robert Chao Romero

@ProfeChaoRomero

https://www.facebook.com/JesusForRevolutionaries?ref=hl

Segregation Today: An MLK Day Reflection

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I write this post today in honor of the memory of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  When I have conversations with secular activists and activist Christians who have fallen away from their faith, I become very thankful for Rev. King.  Thousands (probably millions) of social justice minded individuals in the world today have rejected Christianity because of the way in which it has been misrepresented over the centuries by countries and people who said they believed in Jesus but who went ahead and segregated people based upon the color of their skin.  I love pointing to Rev. King as an example of a follower of Jesus who challenged this misrespresentation of Christianity in the United States for the world, and generations, to see.  As a prophet of God, he told America that segregation was unbiblical and that “Jim Crow” was a violation of God’s truth.

“Jim Crow” refers to the historical time period in between the abolition of slavery in 1876 and the official dismantling of legal segregation in the United States in 1965.   During the era of Jim Crow, white society in America felt that it had the moral and legal right to segregate African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, South Asian Americans, and others, from itself.  This segregation was complete from cradle to the grave. It involved housing, education, health care, public spaces like parks, pools, restaurants, movie theaters, and hiking trails, and even mortuaries and cemeteries!  If you were Latino in Pasadena during this time period, for example, you were even restricted in the days you could enjoy God’s mountains!  As part of Jim Crow, laws banning racial intermarriage remained legal on a national level until 1967. Can you imagine what it was like to live in America during this time period? It makes me so sick to even think about it.

What makes me even more sad was that the vast majority of Christians remained silent during the battle to end segregation in the United States.  Even worse, some Christians actually twisted sacred Scripture to justify racial segregation.  Thankfully, there were very notable exceptions of Christians who stood side by side with Rev. King and denounced Jim Crow segregation as unbiblical and antithetical to the message of Jesus Christ. Under the leadership of Rev. King, they preached the simple biblical message that all humans beings are created equally in the image of God (Genesis 1:27, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them”), and are therefore worthy of equal treatment in all aspects of U.S. society. 

On this MLK Day, I celebrate this amazing legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, a follower of Jesus, who, together with millions of other lesser-known but no less important revolutionaries, brilliantly upended Jim Crow segregation in the Name of Jesus Christ.  As we celebrate the second inauguration of our first Black president today, I imagine that Rev. King must be smiling from heaven.  I know I am.   

Although “de jure” (legal) segregation ended some 48 years ago in the U.S., “de facto” (in fact) racial segregation is still prevalent today.   Jim Crow segregation produced unequal conditions of housing, education, health care, legal services, etc., which have not gone away despite the official end to segregation in the 1960’s.   Jim Crow segregation produced segregated neighborhoods, schools, health care systems, etc., which have continued to replicate themselves to the present day.

Public schools attended by millions of beautiful brown and black children are vastly inferior to those in rich suburban neighborhoods within the same school district.  These same children and their families lack access to quality, affordable health care and legal services, and have few parks and safe public spaces in which to play and just be a kid. The majority of Latinos and African Americans in the United States today continue to experience the invidious lingering effects of Jim Crow segregation.

Lest you think I’m just some radical ethnic studies professor and liberation theology pastor, let’s take a look at some staggering statistics which bear this out:  1 out of every 3 valid legal claims of the poor in California is never heard in court because no attorney will take their case (because they can’t afford to pay); stated another way, 2/3 of the legal services needs of the poor are unmet in this state and it would require $394,100,000 per year to close this profound “justice gap.”

To make matters worse, 16 million kids currently live in poverty in the United States.  With regards to educational access, 8% of low-income students graduate from college sometime within their lifetime vs. 87% of students from affluent communities who will graduate from college by the age of 24.   Out of every 100 Chican@ students who begin elementary school, only 8 will graduate from college, 2 will go on to earn a graduate or professional school degree, and less than 1 will earn a doctorate!  Sadly, similar statistics can be reported for African Americans.  In 2005-2006, only 47% of African American male students graduated from high school.   In 2007, only 56% of African American high school graduates went on to attend college, and in that same year the college graduation rate for African Americans was only 42%.

As for healthcare, close to 50 million people are currently uninsured in the United States.  1 in 4 children go without healthcare in our country, and more than 23 million kids go without adequate healthcare in any given year.   About 30 percent of Latino and 20 percent of African American children lack a regular source of health care, and brown kids are almost 3 times more likely than white kids to lack  sufficient healthcare. 

Millions of Chican@s, Latin@s, African Americans, Native Americans, and others, are still segregated from equal opportunity in the United States.  As followers of Jesus we have an affirmative obligation to advocate on their behalf and to work in His name to transform the inequitable socio-economic and political policies and structures which reinforce this exclusion.  If we don’t, then history, and, most importantly, God, will judge us.  Let’s learn from the mistakes of the millions of Christians, who, half a decade before us, failed to speak up against Jim Crow segregation.  Let’s follow the example of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who, though an imperfect man, sounded a magnificent clarion call for biblical equality in Jesus’ Name.

Much inspired,

Robert Chao Romero

@ProfeChaoRomero

https://www.facebook.com/JesusForRevolutionaries